An Old-Fashioned, Swinging Christmas
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Back in the wild and woolly days before “Oklahoma,” the relationship between nightclubs and “legit” theater was much more informal than it is today. Joints like the Copa and the Cotton Club mounted revues that were often more elaborate than what was being presented on Broadway, while many a Great White Way producer filled his theater in slow weeks with casual productions that were essentially dressed up nightclub shows.
“The Park Avenue Whirl,” playing at the 59E59 Theater, is solidly in the tradition of those entertainments that combine elements of revue, cabaret, and vaudeville stage shows. Starring singers Daryl Sherman and Marion Cowings, along with Vince Giordano and the Nighthawks Orchestra, it offers a musical toast to the 1920s and 1930s by surveying key topics: songs by Cole Porter; music from Duke Ellington, Harold Arlen, and other composers who wrote for the Cotton Club; songs associated with Fred Astaire and Bing Crosby; and other songs about New York.
Ms. Sherman commands most of the onstage time. One of New York’s most accomplished singer-pianists, she plays regularly in the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, but this is her most notable featured spot since the closing of the old Firebird. Mr. Giordano has enjoyed long runs in recent years at the Cajun and the Times Square Grill, although currently he has no regular spot anywhere. Mr. Cowings, too, isn’t heard from often enough (which is surprising given the scarcity of first-rate male contemporary jazz singers).
I am most accustomed to hearing Ms. Sherman accompanied only by her own piano or a rhythm section, which allows her to set tempos as she wishes. But the idea here is to stick with the actual ’30s tempos, both of the swing and “businessman’s bounce” variety. Singers of the era found that it was almost impossible to properly emote and interpret a lyric at those rigid foxtrot tempos, which is why singers like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday did away with them. Yet Ms. Sherman shows it is possible to get the most out of a lyric even while remaining in dance time. It becomes all the more special when she breaks into duets with featured instrumentalists such as clarinetist Dan Block, who gets hot and throaty on “Livin’ in a Great Big Way,” and Mr. Giordano, who jousts with her playfully on his bass saxophone on “From Monday on.”
What’s most impressive about the show is its authenticity. When Mr. Giordano sings “Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams,” he reconstructs Crosby’s whistled and scatted countermelody; when Ms. Sherman performs “There’s a Lull in My Life,” she plays the actual piano part from the Duke Ellington / Ivie Anderson record – and this isn’t even an Ellington composition.
The show also includes a segment of songs imported from Britain. Ms. Sherman’s best ballad is the World War II love song “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square,” while two of the band’s finest features are “How Could We Be Wrong,” a Cole Porter song from a British show as arranged by Ray Noble, and the evocative instrumental “Night Ride,” composed by Sid Phillips for the Ambrose Orchestra. (In another British note, actor Sean Connery, who employed Mr. Giordano’s band in a scene in “Finding Forrester,” was sitting behind me at the first preview last week.)
Mr. Cowings is a jazz singer who, like Ms. Sherman, keeps the melody front and center, using scatting and other embellishments as occasional side dishes. When combining 1940’s “How High the Moon” with Charlie Parker’s famous variation, “Ornithology,” he is joined by his tap-dancing teenage son Alex, who, it is refreshing to report, dances with a smile on his face, unlike most contemporary tap dancers, who look as if they are expecting to be shot at sunrise.
“The Park Avenue Whirl” is long for a nightclub set, short for a musical comedy, and I wish they had budget for the full 11-piece Nighthawks (rather than seven, including Ms. Sherman). It’s a worthy and welcome holiday offering, a rosy-hued depiction of an era when the world didn’t rap about its troubles but rather wrapped its troubles in dreams.
Until December 31 (59 E. 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues, 212-279-4200).
